Unwanted Husbands and Adultery

80 Pages·2006·0.34 MB·English

by  Heli Lahteela

Unwanted Husbands and Adultery:
Medieval Marriage in the Twelfth-Century Tristan and Isolde Legend

Heli Lähteelä

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree
of Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in History

University of Sydney
October 2006
Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank:

My supervisor Lynette Olson, especially for organising time for me every week in the
last few months despite scheduling difficulties.

My flatmate and dear friend Edwina Doran for proof-reading and generally tolerating my
moods.

Andrew “Percy” Crisp for translating Peter Damian for me with his Latin teacher Dexter
Hoyos.

My fellow-honours students who became friends Veronica, Ellen, Christina and Jacqui.

Friends and family who contributed to my sanity in many ways, especially Shaun, Wiley,
Lauren, Chris A., Chris C., Aaron, Sam, Robert and my äiti and iskä.
Index

Introduction 2
Summary of the main plot points in the Tristan and Isolde Legend 6

Chapter I, Overview of Twelfth-Century Marriage 9
The Influence of the Gregorian Reform on the Medieval Church’s
Marriage Policy 9
Marriage in Twelfth-Century Canon Law 13
Modern Theories on Medieval Marriage 18

Chapter II, Chrétien Troyes’ Cliges and the sin of loving two men at once 29

Chapter III, Revenge and Reconciliation: The Rights and Duties of a Cuckolded Husband in
Béroul’s Tristran 45

Chapter IV, “Love is so blissful a thing”: Sexual Behaviour and Honour in Gottfried von
Strassburg’s Tristan 58

Conclusion 70

Bibliography 75
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Introduction

Marriage in the medieval period is an elusive topic for a historian to explore. While it
simultaneously involved nearly everyone’s lives in the Middle Ages, it was discussed sparingly in
the documents that survive to our day. In the twelfth century, however, we suddenly have an
abundance of ecclesiastical sources on marriage, due to the medieval Church’s developing interest
in marriage as a Christian institution. These ecclesiastical texts are the main surviving sources
regarding marriage and they focus on its theological or legal aspects - little is known of people’s
actual lives at the time. In the later Middle Ages, when the Church had already established enough
control over the legal proceedings of marriage for there to be actual court records, we get glimpses
of married life in crisis. However, the formation of the medieval marriage ideology, which still to
a great extent influences modern concepts of marriage, happened mostly during the twelfth
century. Romance literature is one of the most useful sources for contrasting the ecclesiastical
marriage policy, with secular ideas of marriage. The two obviously influenced each other enough
for the lines to blur between what can be considered Christian influence and what were pressures
of lay society. The study of literature shows glimpses of the kind of conflicts that arose especially
between personal feelings and the requirements of secular society and Christian morality.

There are of course great difficulties in interpreting fiction as a reflection of reality. Fiction rarely
gives a very reliable view of people’s lives, especially in the case of the very stylised and fantastic
approach of twelfth-century romance. However, it is entirely plausible for literature to still mirror
ideas and ideals, even fantasies, that people had in relation to their lives. The romances’ ideals of
chivalry and the descriptions of love and marriage came from the imaginations of their authors,
who ultimately should be perceived as products of their times. The authors’ creative works show
what kind of societies the authors were living in and how they experienced the world. If an
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author’s society was mirrored in his works of art and his stories also found a large audience, he
must have succeeded in relating to his contemporaries enough to suggest that his views could be
applied more widely to the medieval world.

Literature gives us an idea of what people were thinking about marriage and love. The viewpoint
of romance literature is more secular than the abundant legal and religious writings on marriage.
While romance authors themselves could often be in ecclesiastical positions, or at least to have
been trained in religious institutions, they were writing with a secular audience in mind. The
purpose of the romances was clearly not to instruct lay people entirely according to religious
morals, although there seems to always be the didactic purpose of bettering and ennobling
people’s minds. The fact that the advice of romance authors and the example of their characters is
notably different from the moral teachings of bishops and popes, already suggests that they
provide a different perspective on society than religious literature.

Modern scholarship on marriage in literature has not been a particularly popular topic in the last
twenty years. Most studies on medieval marriage that bear relevance to this thesis were formulated
in the 1970s and 1980s. Georges Duby’s extensive work on medieval marriage will be discussed
extensively in the First Chapter, as well as David Herlihy’s theories on the medieval family.1 A
particularly interesting study on the relationship between medieval literature and marriage, in the
last decade, have been Peggy McCracken’s book on what medieval romance literature show about
the position of queens in medieval society.2 Another reasonably recent study of medieval literature
and marriage is Neil Cartlidge’s Medieval Marriage: Literary Approaches, 1100-1300, which
efficiently summarises the various modern theories concerning marriage in the Middle Ages in the

1 Especially George Duby, Medieval Marriage: Two Models from Twelfth-Century France, translated by Elbory
Forster, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1978 and David Herlihy, Women, Family and Society in
Medieval Europe: Historical Essays, 1978-1991, Berghahn books, Providence, 1995.
2 Peggy McCracken, The Romance of Adultery: Queenship and Sexual Transgression in Old French Literature,
University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1998.
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fields of both history and literary criticism.3 Cartlidge especially points out the contribution of
typically masculine discourses to the medieval notion of romantic love in opposition to the trend in
feminist history to ignore the traditionally male literary areas in favour of the exclusive study of
female authors.4 Another important compiler of data on medieval marriage customs is James A.
Brundage, whose enormous study on the marital laws should be a constant reference point to
anyone studying medieval marriage.5 This thesis will attempt to apply the theories and
contributions of the above scholars to see what the reception and handling of the love story of
Tristan and Isolde in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries may tell us about the relationship
between religious ideals of matrimony, secular marriage structures and people’s personal
aspirations.

Chrétien de Troyes’ Cliges is the first case study of this thesis and relates back to the idea of what
created a valid marriage and whether people really had any choice in who they married.
Considering the fact that the church had trouble establishing whether it was consent or
consummation that made a marriage, Chrétien’s focus on consummation perhaps shows that
secular society preferred this practical evidence. It was written in the 1170s and Chrétien indicates
in the prologue that he wrote a version of the Tristan and Isolde story that unfortunately does not
survive.6 Chrétien’s Cliges is, however, among the earliest written romances which refers directly
to the Tristan and Isolde legend.7 It in fact follows the plot closely enough to be considered a re-
treatment of that story, an attempt to make the story morally more justifiable and illustrates how
powerless people often were to follow their individual desires in marriage.

3Neil Cartlidge, Medieval Marriage: Literary Approaches, 1100-1300, D.S. Brewer, Suffolk,1997.
4 Ibid. pp 9-10.
5 James A. Brundage, Law sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago,
1987.
6 David Staines, “Introduction” to The Complete Romances of Chrétien de Troyes, translation and introduction by
David Staines, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, First Midland Book Edition, 1993 (orig. 1990).
7 The oldest extant lay of Tristan dates from about 1165, Thomas of Oberge’s and Thomas of Britain’s Tristan stories
were written in the 1170s, W.T.H Jackson, The Anatomy of Love: The Tristan of Gottfried von Strassburg, Columbia
University Press, New York, 1971, p 35.
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For Béroul’s Tristran, written soon after 1191, I will focus on the punishments for adultery and
the rights that a husband had when his wife was unfaithful. Béroul’s romance relates easily to the
various laws of barbarians and Romans, showing that despite the Church’s efforts to establish
control over marriage, old laws were deeply embedded in marriage customs. Béroul’s Tristran
also shows the enmeshing of ecclesiastical and secular values in the moral principles of the laity.
The landed nobility of the twelfth century was becoming more and more aware of what the Church
required of them and was adapting those values to fit in with secular ideals of honour and duty.

The more analytical and mystical version of Tristan by Gottfried von Strassburg, written sometime
in the first decades of the thirteenth century, is an excellent source on the role of sex in people’s
lives. Religious writers restricted their discussion of sex to the context of marriage and even then
considered it a corrupting force. Gottfried, on the other hand, sees sex in the framework of
personal happiness, as an expression of love. Passion and love seem to have been something
people still wanted in marriage, despite the Church finding them inappropriate to the solemnity of
the institution. As such, in the case study of Gottfried, I will concentrate on the concern for
personal happiness in marriage, which is illustrated by Isolde’s mother’s concern and concocting
of the love potion.

By default, this study of medieval marriage focuses on the upper classes of society. The audience
of the romances consisted largely of the nobility and their authors used aristocratic characters
rather than common people. Throughout, I will try to show the relation of the romances as works
of fiction to the more official sources, like legal and theological texts. The Tristan legend was
enormously popular and well-known and it was re-written by numerous authors. Medieval authors
preferred writing stories that were already well-established and interpreting them in their own
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way. Gottfried, for example, was telling a very different story to Béroul, even if the basic building
blocks were the same. Thus, a comparison of the different Tristan related stories is useful, as the
slight and great differences tend to illustrate what social injustices and conflicts were on the
authors’ minds as they were writing. Since the story is ultimately about adultery, I will also
perforce concentrate on marriages in crisis. Marriage legislation obviously only came into the
picture at the start of a marriage or if there were serious conflicts in the marriage, thus our
ecclesiastical sources are skewed towards unhappy marriages not happy ones. Nonetheless, a crisis
can more clearly bring to focus societal problems that otherwise remained under the surface. An
example in point being the problem of not freely choosing one’s spouse. Tristan and Isolde would
never have engaged in adultery had they been allowed to marry each other after falling in love, but
duty made Isolde marry the man she had been given to, Mark.

Summary of the main plot points in the Tristan and Isolde Legend

The following synopsis of the Tristan legend will summarise the main points of the story for
anyone unfamiliar with the plot of the love story:

Rivalin and Blancheflor, the sister of King Mark of Cornwall, engage in a pre-marital affair, which
leaves her pregnant. Upon learning of her pregnancy Rivalin elopes with her to his own kingdom.
They are hastily married, and Rivalin dies soon after in armed conflict. Blancheflor dies of grief
and childbirth, bringing forth Tristan. The tales of Tristan’s youth vary, but eventually he ends up
in Mark’s court, who, upon learning that he is his nephew, makes him heir. Mark promises not to
marry so that there will be no rivals to Tristan’s inheritance.
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As time passes, Mark comes under pressure from his barons to marry regardless of his promise,
and he agrees. Tristan is sent to fetch Isolde, the daughter of the Irish King, as a wife for Mark.
Tristan succeeds, however, Isolde is unhappy because Tristan has previously killed her uncle, as
Mark’s champion, and because she is distraught about leaving her home for a husband she has not
even met. On the boat Tristan and Isolde accidentally drink a love potion, intended for Isolde and
her husband-to-be, and fall madly in love. Isolde marries Mark and her maid Brangane sleeps with
Mark on the wedding night so that Isolde can hide the fact she has lost her virginity to Tristan.

Tristan and Isolde try to meet as often as possible, causing suspicions in court. Mark becomes
increasingly obsessed with finding out if they are, in fact, lovers. The various plots to discover the
lovers and their clever ruses to make Mark believe their innocence, were especially indulged in
when the storyteller wanted to make the story rather a comedy than a tragedy.

The couple are eventually discovered and to escape punishment they run away to the woods. They
are later found with a sword between them, causing Mark to again believe their innocence. They
are soon after reconciled with Mark and there is usually a trial by ordeal, where Isolde
duplicitously affirms that she has always been faithful to Mark. The lovers then usually need to
part for long periods of time, but continue to conduct their affair more sporadically.

Eventually Tristan and Isolde die. There are many versions of their end, but neither Gottfried’s nor
Béroul’s Tristan stories, discussed in this thesis, survive completely and are thus missing a
resolution. Thomas’s version, on which Gottfried’s Tristan is based, tells that Tristan, who is by
then married to another woman whom he does not love, becomes ill and sends for Isolde to cure
him. She leaves Mark to come to Tristan one last time. Tristan’s messenger flies white sails when
he approaches Tristan’s home by boat, but his jealous wife claims the sails are black and therefore
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the messenger has failed to convince Isolde to come. Tristan dies of despair and when Isolde
comes to him she is so overcome with grief she dies herself.